Untitled
by starsareFALLING
Summary: Chapter four! "Her entire body hurt. The walls bled, the colors drained; the whole world screamed. Nothing else existed. But she couldn’t let go. She couldn’t kill anyone else… even if it hurt." Jennifer/Needy, eventually.
1. Are You Scared?

"Are you scared?"

The air around them was thick and heavy, and her body felt like it was on fire. Burning from the inside out, maybe, like they'd torn out her insides and stuffed her with thousands of flaming wicks that crawled and coiled and crept, worming into her veins like acidic leeches, consuming everything there was within her that was once human. She felt infected, diseased. The heat made her dizzy, confused her. It made her angry. She felt sick. She was sweating and panting and burning, but indefinitely composed; her body moved regardless, independent. Bile raged inside and her stomach churned; nausea thrashed and writhed; she wanted to throw up—she already had, hadn't she?—but she was still so _hungry_.

And Needy smelled so good.

Needy had always smelled good. Even when they were children, Jennifer had noticed. Needy may not have come from as well off a family as Jennifer, and she might have had to live without the fancy clothes and toys Jennifer had, but that didn't matter. She'd never, ever been any less of a person in the brunette's eyes. It might have been apparent to other people, but never to Jennifer. She came to the conclusion when they were seven that it was the way Needy smelled. Needy smelled like honey, sweet, golden, and warm, and when you breathed her in, it was like you could feel her sinking into your skin. She smelled like vanilla, like sugar cookies, and sometimes a little like flowers. She smelled like love; like somebody loved her…

It had been a strange concept to conceive at such a young age, but Jennifer liked it. She loved the way Needy smelled, and, even though her house was, as the blonde used to call it, 'boring' because she didn't have as many things as Jennifer did, she loved the way her house smelled too. It was always cozy at Needy's, always warm, and everything within that little sphere of the universe Needy occupied just felt like being wrapped in a great big bear hug.

As time passed and they both grew, Jennifer bitterly realized that they just had different lives. She didn't blame Needy, of course; it wasn't her fault. She just hated to acknowledge the truth. She may not have been rich in the universal, million-dollar sense of the word, but in their little hole-in-the-ground town, she was well off: the poor man's rich. Needy wasn't, but in the broad scope of things, she was rich in another sense.

Needy had been raised and dressed and fed with _care_, not money. Needy was always loved, always precious. She was taken care of. And while Needy's clothes weren't as pretty, and her sweaters in the winter weren't as form-fitting or flattering as Jennifer's, it was always Needy who was warm and happy and carefree while Jennifer tried to pretend she wasn't shivering uncontrollably because the jacket her parents had paid fifty dollars more for was merely stylish and did nothing for the weather. It was always Needy who would smile that knowing, but tender, smile of hers, blue eyes soft behind her glasses, and offer Jennifer her sweater, which Jennifer would always take with the same detached complaint about her lack of fashion sense. It was always Needy who was there to keep her warm…

Years and years, and she still smelled the same; her house still smelled the same; honey and vanilla—but through the blood and the sickness and the craving, aching famine, it all seemed so far away. There was something inside of her that felt _wrong_. She wanted Needy like she'd never wanted anything in her life. She wanted the honey, the vanilla, the sugar cookie taste in her mouth, on her tongue. She wanted to savor the flavor as she licked it from her lips. It was nauseating. She felt so sick, but Needy smelled so good, and she was so, so hungry…

Amidst the fog, Jennifer felt Needy nod—but to what? She barely remembered speaking. She wasn't even sure she had. Her body had—her lips had moved, numb and slick with blood and the tar-like substance she'd expelled moments prior—but _she_ hadn't… though it didn't matter. Whatever or whoever commanded her lips to speak, Needy answered, silent but for her whimpering. Actions speak louder than words, they said.

Jennifer held tight to the wall. Needy's body was _screaming_. The blonde's entire body was shaking; her breath shook and her limbs trembled. She was afraid; she was terrified—she was tantalizing. The brunette's hunger surged. Her lips, her teeth, her tongue _ached_. If hopelessness had a taste or a scent or a presence, it was oozing from Needy's body, clinging to her skin, caught in the air, teasing her senses. She could only imagine how good Needy would taste… She felt her head tilt, her lips just above the flesh of Needy's neck. The urge to bite down was overwhelming.

So close… Just a taste…

But she couldn't.

No matter how _hungry_ she was, she couldn't hurt Needy. Needy was her best friend… Needy _loved_ her… and she loved Needy. She loved everything about her. Her skin, her smell, the house—Jennifer felt sick. She couldn't stay any longer.

She pushed off from the wall, hollow, utterly empty. She couldn't even look Needy in the face. She turned down the cozy little hall she'd walked so many thousands of times and forced her body to move. Each step felt like her legs were made of lead, a separate entity possessed by a beast, dominated by hunger and ravenous voracity. Her entire body was shaking; a remnant of Needy's trembling, she guessed. She could still feel her, like a furnace, emitting tangible heat, fading away the further she moved, crying, shaking, horrified… But the tremors were fast fading from her system, traded for pins and needles, replaced by numbness, and by the time she walked out the door, she felt nothing at all.

* * *

Because I think there was a lot more to Jennifer than we got to see in the movie. Extended metaphor in the works, if anybody's interested in a continuation. Review if you'd like.


	2. I'll Never Tell

She was freaked out, but she'd never let them know. She couldn't let _anyone_ know, not even Needy. So, she did what she did best: she faked it. She forced her usual smirk and waltzed about, strutting down the halls, laughing, bouncy and perky and completely Jennifer Check; and she let people stare—because they could never know. To them, to her, the fire didn't matter. What happened after… never happened. All they needed to know was that she survived. So she'd been there, she'd seen people die, she'd smelt them burning—but she was still Jennifer Check. Wasn't she?

She wasn't sure… but she couldn't let them know. To them, there was no question: she was _Jennifer Check_. And it had taken so many years to create that name; she'd spent so much time building that face. There was no way she could just let it all go… So, she faked it, because Jennifer Check was a marble statue of a goddess. She was flawless, smooth, and empty, and she could not be broken. Jennifer Check was an extreme, like fire, because she burned; like ice, because she was cold, she didn't care. Jennifer Check was never freaked out. Jennifer Check was never scared, never afraid, never lost; Jennifer Check was confident and sure and untouchable. If she cared, if she was scared, if she was afraid and lost, she wasn't Jennifer Check—and if she wasn't Jennifer Check, she was _nobody_. Jennifer Check was all she had. She was a walking contradiction, but she was _beautiful_, and she was _perfect_, and _everybody_ wanted her.

Jennifer Check was a mask…

The only person who had ever seemed to get that was Needy. Growing up, she watched her build the walls, watched her carve the name. She watched her create that one thing everybody wanted. Needy was the only one who had ever wanted what was inside… She'd always wanted her, even before she became the wet dream, the pin-up, the _idol_ that was Jennifer Check. She questioned her, several times. She knew the persona, the damage it did. She was shy and she was self-conscious, and a little nervous about Jennifer's reaction at times, but she wanted to know why. She cared enough about her best friend to forget herself for a moment, even if it meant being shot down.

"_What do you think, Needs? Hot, huh?"_

"_Scorching… but, um, since when do you wear belts with tube tops?"_

"_Since belts draw attention to my gorgeous hips."_

"_Jennifer, you hate belts. You got dress code violations in grade school twice a day because you used to take yours off. Your jeans always fit perfectly anyway—and even if they don't, you never wear a belt unless your shirt's tucked in. You're allergic to the metal. It gives you a rash."_

"_Mm. But I look damn sexy in silver, don't I? I should get something pierced…"_

She may have seemed naïve to other people, but Jennifer had always known Needy was on to her.

Even then, she saw right through her. She called her bluff, questioned her, threw everything she was trying to ignore right back in her face, dug up everything she'd tried to bury and smothered her in it. Jennifer could barely stand to look at her. With every glance, a phantom hunger of the same nature and desperation of the night before clawed at her throat, hollowly, achingly, fueled by the desire to finish what she had started, the memory of what she had almost done… She could still feel the heat radiating from Needy's body, the cotton of her sweater in her hands, even through the blood, the ache in her teeth; she could still feel, smell, _taste_ the fear dripping from her skin…

She tried to make a joke of it, to push it all away, but Needy wouldn't let it go. Jennifer didn't have to ask why. Her reaction was heartless, cold, even for Jennifer Check. Needy was scared, and she wanted Jennifer to be scared with her. She was begging, pleading with her to care, to feel, to show a soul, a sign of life. The fear was etched in her eyes; silent words, questions and pleas. She could almost hear them.

'Tell me you're still in there. Please, Jen. Please, tell me you're okay. That smile, that hollow, empty smile—that can't be all that's left…'

Jennifer could still feel the skin stretching, the maniacal warping of her face, lips pulling back over teeth. It was like someone had gripped her bodily by the mouth and pulled, tearing the skin back, farther and farther, impossibly wide; a gleaming smile of teeth and blood. The memory haunted her. She hadn't even seen it, but she didn't have to. The monster was at the surface, and she knew it. It was there then, too, just beneath the skin. Each time she put on that face, that painted smile worn by Jennifer Check, wraithlike fingers wrapped around the corners of her mouth and settled, taut, waiting…

She wondered if anyone could see the difference. She remembered something like it from that book Needy used to tell her about when they were younger. She wondered if it was there—the touch of cruelty in the mouth? She wondered if people noticed. She wondered if, at any moment, the hands would pull and tear and rend that perfect face in two, so that everyone would see the monster within…

Needy noticed, of course. Needy noticed everything. She must have seen it, because she was afraid, she was desperate. When she raised her hands to show the gore caked around her fingernails, solid proof of the night before, Jennifer's stomach turned. Her throat constricted violently and acidic liquids surged—but she covered it with a harsh laugh and a pun. She was good at that. She always had been. Jennifer Check was like ice.

Needy sighed and dropped her hands, and the topic along with them, and they both turned to stare blankly at their professor, though neither paid attention. The tension in Jennifer's throat lessened, but her nausea still remained, like everything inside was carbonated, and the slow shaking of reality had caused it to teem and boil, frothing inside. The sickness was building. She was beginning to wonder if it would ever leave… but she could never let them know.

* * *

Still haven't thought of a title, but the plot's definitely on the go. Awaiting your command, captain. Permission to write? Review.


	3. What I've Done

Sometimes, it felt like she wasn't even in control of her own body. There was something inside that took over, walked for her, talked for her. She was just a visitor; her body was the host. _Jennifer_ was a prisoner, trapped behind her own eyes, a ghost, an ethereal memory, intangible; she could touch nothing, reach for nothing. She was just a scream in the night that nobody heard, swallowed by the darkness.

Jennifer's _body_ was an entity on its own. It was a walking, talking, breathing, seething _cage_. Some other conscious existed within it that she had no contact with. The metaphysical ties that had once kept her anchored to herself had been severed. New ties had been forged, cords of steel and fire, welded and melded into her body to _something_ that she wasn't a part of. It knew, too, and it laughed. It probed her mind, used her own body against her, but she had no hands to hold it back, no voice to reason with it. It was impervious, untouchable, and _it_ was in control.

When she found herself—her _body_—calling after Collin, and she saw him turn around, she knew there was something wrong. He was going to get hurt. He was going to die. But her body kept talking, drawing him in. It was a siren, and its call was Collin's new favorite symphony.

And Needy was onto it.

Jennifer was ashamed. She wanted to ask for help. She wanted to cry and plead and beg Needy to save her, because those jerks from Low Shoulder seriously fucked her over and she didn't know what was going on anymore. She'd never been so scared in her life, even when they had her bound and gagged and hysterical, praying for it all to end. At least then, the situation was out of her hands. She tried, and she failed. Now, the situation was _in_ her hands, and there was no changing anything. The nightmare went on. The movie kept playing. She didn't know what to do—but Needy would. Needy always knew what to do, ever since they were kids. Needy was the smart one… Needy would take care of her…

But she couldn't. She couldn't bear the truth, even though it stared her dead in the face every morning as she got ready for school, worsening day after day. Pale skin; ragged, lifeless lips; alien, demonic eyes in the mirror… She was her own nightmare, and she couldn't wake up. Her eyes were open.

Her memory had been hazy at first. Everything blurred together in waves of sound, washes of color, shots of sensation; nothing made sense. But by then, she had figured it all out. She knew what happened. Enough sleepless nights had passed for her to piece it all together.

She'd let her lust get the best of her like always, but this time, she fixated on the wrong guy. She spent the night drooling over some scumbag indie rocker who wore more eyeliner than she did. She ignored her best friend, utterly transfixed, got in their van, and they _fucked her up_. Took her into the woods and tore her apart. They ripped her open—and something crawled its way in. In those empty, black, timeless moments of non-existence, the grungy glam-band Satanists took off and _something_ took over. But she never woke up. Moments, maybe minutes, maybe hours, of eternal blackness, and then, suddenly, she was walking, as if possessed, as if on strings. Zombie-like, slow, robotic—dead? She should have been.

Reeling from whatever it was—sleep, coma, _death_—her mind was slow. She passed thoughtlessly through the trees, heedless of the dark, of predators. There was nothing worse that could happen that hadn't already. If they raped her then, she wouldn't have even felt it. She was numbly unaware. Sensation was beginning to return, burning everywhere, but she didn't care. Sensation meant nothing; she barely _felt_. There was only one thing in the entire world that existed to her, one thing of meaning, and she clung to it fiercely: Needy.

But her body, the thing inside, whatever had replaced her, it had something on its mind too: _hunger_.

The two together found her standing on Needy's doorstep, motionless, dead, dripping blood, a macabre mannequin, a marionette, salivating at the scent of honey and vanilla seeping from under the door. But her mind was still asleep; she didn't understand the danger. All she knew was that she _needed_ to see her. She needed Needy. She needed her to hold her and tell her that she was okay, that none of it was real; she needed her to wake her from the nightmare and soothe her sleep into fantasies. She needed Needy to comfort her, to love her… After all that had happened, would she?

She didn't remember entering the house, or how she had done it, but she remembered seeing her. She remembered the rushing surge of relief that swelled within, the warmth that shot down her spine. She remembered the realization, the cold, sinking dread that followed…

The hunger, the walking, Needy's house; the correlation suddenly made sense.

The thing inside, the thing in control—it bared teeth and smiled. It was ravenous and beastly. It was hungry. It wanted flesh, and opportunity had arisen. It wanted honey and vanilla and sugar cookies drizzled over silky skin. It wanted Needy… because _she_ wanted Needy.

And then she started fighting. She wouldn't. With whatever influence she still had on her own body, she forced it across the kitchen to the fridge. She shoved half a dead chicken down her throat, Needy's desperate, horrified rambling ringing in her ears. And then the nausea really set in. The giant upheaval of tar didn't make it go away; it only made the thing inside angry. And it got harder to fight it. Total control slipped away and the animate prison of her body shoved Needy's crumbling frame against the wall, ready to feast. But she _couldn't_. Not Needy.

She had been shattered, detached from her body, but the pieces that remained warred with it. She fought for what seemed like forever, but it was maybe only seconds. _It_ was winning. And then, for the first time since her very last scream, it spoke.

"_Are you scared?"_

Those words echoed in her head; whispers in the darkness. They woke her from sleep, tore her from daydreams. They resounded within her, as if the words themselves had become part of her monstrosity. They ripped her heart to shreds. They _hurt_. She could only imagine what Needy had been thinking… Shaking, trembling, crying, she had nodded, and the veracity of the gesture was obvious. She had been terrified.

The body didn't respond, but Jennifer did. It was never uttered, but it was real; faint, but _real_. In much the same state as Needy, whatever remained of her shook and trembled and cried. It whispered, brokenly, easily swallowed and melded inside by the monster that had taken over.

If only she could have spoken, she would have told her:

"_Me too."_

At that moment, she knew that, no matter what, she couldn't. Her body knew it too. So, she left, and she found someone else.

She didn't know how she'd done it. She'd been so close… but she stopped. She couldn't hurt Needy. She loved her. In the end, that was the only thing that gave her the strength to force her body to move away. Walking those first steps had felt like ripping a spool of barbed wire from her throat, through her intestines, tearing everything inside. Her entire body felt as if it was being split in two… but she could deal, as long as she didn't hurt Needy. The farther she walked, the less she felt; the more she shut down. _It _took over.

Finding Ahmet was like a miracle. Ahmet from India—nobody would miss him. For all they knew, he died in the fire. To everyone else, he was already dead, a heap of trampled ash scattered in the ruins of a dingy bar south of town. Poor, poor Ahmet, the little foreign boy, in the wrong place at the wrong time. By the time the fire had gone out, there was nothing left of him. It was like he'd never been there at all… Nobody knew he'd escaped, so nobody knew about the demon that followed him home. It was perfect.

He smelled like smoke and butane and alcohol, and nowhere near as appetizing as Needy—but he was edible, and that was all that mattered. By then, she could have eaten her own arms to eradicate her hunger. Her strength was fading every second. The weakness was irritating and painful and all-consuming; it felt like _dying_. That only made things worse for Ahmet. Apparently, _it_ didn't like pain very much. It had been angry, raging, starving, and particularly vicious to Ahmet consequentially, but, even then, tearing him apart, as sick as she had been, she could close her eyes, and it wasn't real. She could close her eyes, and she could ignore the screams. At least it wasn't Needy…

She could live with what she'd done, and she'd endure it in silence, as long as it wasn't Needy…

* * *

Prepare for abrupt departure. Next chapter includes semi-original material. Plot elements unseen the movie come into play. Let me know if you want to read them.

Note: this chapter seems repetitive, reminiscent of the first one. I am aware. Lol. It was meant to be that way for an accurate factor of realism. I know if crazy shizz like that happened to me, I'd be replaying it in my head every nanosecond. o_O Plus, there were additional factors I wanted to bring to light. They help lead into the rest of the story. Trust me, plot twists abound!

Review so I feel like there's a point to continuing. :]


	4. Stand My Ground

Her skull was pounding. A violent pulse, throbbing, quaking at the beat of a metronome.

_Tick… tock… tick… tock… _

Everything was warping. The walls bled, the colors drained; reality was fading. The universe was losing meaning.

Her throat was raw and her stomach was empty. Her mind was blank. All that was left was _hunger_.

She hadn't eaten in days. 'Food' held no satisfaction anymore; it made her sick. The thing inside crawled with its presence, writhing within. It twisted and roared and clawed at her flesh from beneath, and she couldn't take it. She felt sinister and inhuman enough as it was, hungry all the time, ravenous; she couldn't take actually feeling _it_ inside. But she refused to give it what it wanted. She'd tried everything, _anything_ else, but, just as stubborn, it refused to take what she was offering. Substitutions were unacceptable. So, she stopped eating—period. No food, no people; nothing.

That made it angry. For a while, the rage was even worse than the sickness, roiling, searing, trying to burn her out, but, after a certain point, the hunger made it weak. Even though it killed her to think that she was coming to terms with it, _accepting_ it, she was learning. If she could hold off just long enough, everything stopped. The haze of static dissonance, the constant war over her body, dissipated and the beast receded, as if weary, wounded, and the hunger ceased. Extreme starvation brought tentative moments of bliss, when the monster was weak and lifeless, unable to fight any longer. There were moments of tumultuous chaos when a pang of hunger would overcome her, when _it_ had remained still and silent just long enough to reserve the strength for an uprising, roaring in her with such intensity that she felt faint—but she could deal with pangs.

It was the pangs that evolved into wrenching, aching spasms that she couldn't handle. The wracking contractions, convulsions of deprivation, felt like symptoms of a withdrawal. Her entire body hurt. The walls bled, the colors drained; the whole world screamed. Nothing else existed. But she couldn't let go. She held on to the last traces of her humanity with all she had. She couldn't kill anyone else… even if it hurt.

Even if Collin would hate her for the rest of his life, at least he would live… She wouldn't leave her room. He would go to the address she'd given him, and he would stay for half an hour, optimistic, waiting, and then he would realize that she wasn't going to show up, and he would be angry and he would curse her name, and she would still stay, breathing, restraining, _starving_, in her room, just to save him; to save her soul—if she still had one. She would fast through the 'episode', as if it was a disease. It would pass. If she only held out long enough, if she waited it out, it would pass…

Besides, fasting was religious; maybe God would help her…? Then again, maybe He wouldn't. Maybe, by then, He had turned away and forgotten all about poor little Jennifer Check. And why shouldn't He, after all she'd done? But if even He wouldn't help… who would?

Needy would. Jennifer knew that without a doubt. Needy would help keep her human… Needy would hold her hand and stroke her hair and rub her back like she did whenever she got a cold or a flu. She would lay in bed with her and make jokes about the cartoons on TV that she was too tired to open her eyes for, and Jennifer would fall asleep to the melody of her voice and the subtle music of her laughter. She would listen to her heartbeat and wonder if her own was beating to match it, if they beat together… She would whisper her name, and those blue eyes would turn to her with a question she could never find the courage to answer out loud.

Needy… If she closed her eyes, she could almost smell her, honey and vanilla and flowers on the breath of a winter night…

The dripping universe changed tides, washing over her in a wave of heat, a surge of warmth. The scent pooled in her mouth, on her tongue, liquid, as if she could drink it in. Pins and needles crept up her spine. A chill slipped through the open window and rose on her flesh. With her eyes closed, she could smell Needy in the wind, and it sunk into her skin like a fever, like molten wax. The pulse of her hunger intensified, beating harder and harder until her whole body shook with it. Her very nerves trembled with anticipation. She swallowed convulsively. Needy would taste so good…

Panic settled in. Thinking about Needy at random was bad enough; the mere memory of her scent, the thought of her skin, made her hungry. Thinking about Needy when she was already hungry was worse. Her body fought to leave the bed, raging inside, wrestling for control. It wanted Needy. She wanted Needy… badly. She wanted to stop imagining and actually _taste_ her. It had been so long since she had…

"_Your eyes kinda look like the sky, you know…"_

_Needy dropped her gaze, surprised. From her place below, reclining, with her head in Needy's lap, Jennifer smiled. She loved the way her cheeks turned just the slightest shade of pink, offsetting the blue of her eyes and the golden hue of her hair in just the perfect way. To Jennifer, there was no sight more captivating. Needy was the most beautiful girl she had ever seen, the best person she had ever known._

_Though she had been caught off guard, the blonde above composed herself. She nudged Jennifer's shoulder half-heartedly. "Cut it out, Jen."_

_Jennifer caught her hand. "No, I'm serious." She laced their fingers together and let their hands fall to rest on her chest, just below the BFF pendant she wore for her, just above her heart. "From down here, I just noticed…" In truth, she'd noticed ten minutes ago, when she first started staring up at her, but she'd only gotten the nerve to say it just then. Hoping for courage, she took a breath and smiled. "They're beautiful."_

_The pink of Needy's cheeks darkened. She shook her head. "You have blue eyes too, Jen." She shrugged. "Yours are way prettier."_

_Jennifer pushed herself from the ground, letting the grass and the leaves fall away carelessly. She turned to face Needy, pulling one leg up to lean against her. She reclaimed her hand and studied the pink polish she'd spent last Tuesday afternoon painting onto the blonde's nails. "Mine are too dark. Pretty for a second, but if you look too long, you realize there's nothing there… You have the kind of eyes that I could stare into for hours and hours and never get bored…" Raising her eyes, she fought to keep her cool. "If I were a boy, I'd make you my girlfriend…"_

_She didn't know what possessed her to say it. She'd felt that way for a long time by then, but she'd never thought of telling her. People could never know those kinds of things… The façade of Jennifer Check wouldn't allow it. High school had solidified the rules she'd been writing, and even though they were only freshmen, she couldn't break them now. Jennifer Check dated quarterbacks and basketball players and lead singers in indie bands. She fell for meatheads with muscles or musical talent. Those were the rules—and if she broke the rules, she broke _herself_. _

_But that didn't stop her from feeling the way she did for Needy. No amount of rationalization or argument could stop it or change it. She had been in love with Needy since the first grade, and the older they got, the feelings only got harder to hide, harder to fight, harder to ignore…_

_The color drained from Needy's face. She licked her lips like she did when she was nervous, and it appeared as though she was going to say something, but she shook her head abruptly. When she spoke, there was a strange sadness in her tone, as if Jennifer's words had hurt her. "You could have anybody, Jen. You don't want me." She avoided the brunette's eyes, gazing at their intertwined fingers, playing with them idly._

_Though she knew there was a big chance she'd regret it, in some cosmic way, as if karma would haunt her for the rest of her life and throw it in her face every chance it got, Jennifer couldn't stand to see Needy sad; she had to tell her the truth. She might never get another chance to. She grasped Needy's hand tighter, pulling it closer toward her so that she would look up. Her heart beat rapidly in her chest._

"_But I do," she said, willing Needy to believe her. She held her eyes intently. "You're my one and only, Needs. My biff." She took a deep breath and restrained herself from squeezing the other girl's hand. A moment that felt more like an eternity passed before she could make herself continue. "I'll be your boyfriend if you'll be my girlfriend…"_

_They both knew it wasn't real, because Jennifer could never be Needy's _boy_friend, but neither of them cared. _

_Needy nodded, and Jennifer leaned forward…_

She'd tasted like strawberry ice cream and cherry soda. Her lips had been warm and soft and tentative, everything she loved about her; and she'd smelled a little more like flowers than usual, like she always did in the Fall. When she ran her fingers through her hair, it slipped between them like silk; her skin was warm beneath her sweater, like cotton fresh out of the dryer. It was safe; it was real. For a moment, the world didn't exist. 'Jennifer Check' and 'Anita Lesnicky' didn't exist. It was just them, just Jen and Needy, warm, soft, and tentative, and it was perfect.

Jennifer gripped the sheets beneath her tightly. Her desire for Needy was heightening her hunger. She needed to stop. She was so deep into her thoughts that her mind was playing tricks on her—or maybe it was her body, using her senses against her. Needy's scent seemed to be getting stronger, thicker and thicker in the air, until there was no distinction between the two. She breathed it in desperately, as if it were her own personal brand of oxygen. It burned down her throat, dense and inescapable, liquid fire, molten lava that pooled low in her stomach and seeped into every tissue of her body. The scent seemed to caress her, teasing, rousing, inciting the beast inside until, furious that it was being restrained, it began to thrash for control. Her body shook with internal warfare. It hadn't been so hard to fight since the very first time…

A knock sounded on her door. The urge to lurch from the bed, tear the door off its hinges, and maul whoever was on the other side washed over her, but she remained still. She closed her eyes and ignored the knock. If she didn't answer, her mother would convince herself that she was sleeping and leave her alone. If she didn't give in, the hunger would pass… Nothing lasted forever.

If she could only get Needy's scent off her mind, out of her mouth, out of her skin…

Her ears detected the first inner mechanisms of the door handle turning. She willed whoever it was to go away.

If she could only taste her, just one more time; just one more perfect moment, and she'd be okay…

The door opened slowly, inch by painstaking inch. She could hear the wood just grazing the carpet.

Whoever it was—

"Jen?"

Atomic collision occurred. Fire met ice. Time stopped, the universe itself seemed to combust, and everything changed. She knew that voice anywhere. It echoed in her dreams, circulated in her veins, ran marathons through her mind, beat in her heart…

She didn't even have to see her.

Needy.

* * *

Uh-oh. Where's this going? Tension, tension.

I'm starting to feel really bad for Jennifer. She really is trying.

My apologies for the gap in posting, by the way. Since this chapter is a bit longer than the others and completely original, I'd hoped that you might forgive me. You should all review and tell me you're not mad. Heck, review even if you are mad. Let me know!

Now, who wants to see Jennifer and Needy in very, very close proximity? ;]


End file.
